Yesterday I was fortunate enough to witness (quite accidentally) some thing interesting – I landed in the organization for a visit and was stuck in the security gate’s visitor’s room for more than an hour:
One of the renowned IT companies here, was conducting a mock drill – on ‘terrorist attack’.
I have been reading about terrorist mock drills conducted by government agencies, large financial institutions etc. But it was a pleasant surprise (for me) to see IT organizations taking such drills so seriously.

It was really heartening to see active involvement from all authorities like Police and other forces, fire force, medical institutions (actual ones who will be involved in a real situation) with their tools and equipments. Only the terrorists, hostages, casualties and the fireworks/explosions were mock!

The objectives of the drill (as I understood from the way it was conducted and what I could capture from the commentary that was going on for the employees):

  • To create awareness among the employees about:
    •  the Do’s and Don’ts during such an unfortunate incident
    • different activities that go through during such an event
    • different agencies who get involved in such an emergency situation
  • Create confidence in the employee community on the preparedness of the authorities and the relevant agencies involved
  • To provide an opportunity for the ERT members and other stake holders to ‘test and trial-run’ their roles, procedures and communication framework – that will definitely prepare them much better for an emergency situation.

It was a well planned and executed drill and am sure it met most of the objectives (if not all).

While appreciating  all the positives in the planning and execution there, I could not help notice some minor observations which could be of some concern to such organizations who are taking the employee safety and awareness seriously: